2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2) is a virus recently identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness (Coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19) with an increasing number of patients with severe symptoms and deaths. Typically, with most respiratory viruses, people are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the sickest). With SARS-CoV-2, however, there have been reports of spread from an infected patient with no symptoms to a close contact. To monitor the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and to prevent its spread, it is highly important to detect infection as early and as fast as possible with a sensitive, reliable test, not only in the clinic, but also in remote locations, without the need for laboratory equipment.
Currently available Coronavirus diagnostic tests are based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that usually require extensive technical infrastructure and know-how. (2,3) Thus, there is a need for a point-of-care (PoC) SARS-CoV-2 screening test that is selective, sensitive, reliable, and easily integrated in different settings around the world. Such a test must be simple, cost-effective, portable, able to be mass-produced, and easy to use in low resource settings